Consumer Groups Support NAB Push for Audible Crawl Rule Change
Consumer groups representing the blind support NAB’s request for FCC clarification of its audible crawl rule, according to comments filed in docket 12-107 by last week’s deadline. The FCC has continuously waived the rule for nearly a decade because compliance isn’t technologically feasible, according to broadcasters. Last week, the FCC granted its latest, a six-month retroactive waiver (see 2412200055). “To the extent that information provided in an accessible text crawl is the same as the information provided by a nontextual graphic, we are tentatively supportive of a minor modification of the rule,” the American Foundation for the Blind and the American Council of the Blind said in a joint filing. In addition, any FCC effort to enforce the audible crawl waiver would be “legally suspect’ in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Chevron deference, Gray Local Media commented.
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The audible crawl rule requires that broadcasters provide an audio version of onscreen graphically displayed emergency information, but the FCC has repeatedly waived it since 2015 and broadcasters have never had to comply with it. To end that string of waivers, NAB has asked the agency to add language specifying that stations can comply with the rule by providing textual crawls that add duplicative or equivalent information to the radar maps or other onscreen emergency information graphics.
Consumer groups said in their joint filing that they support NAB’s petition as long as blind viewers can receive the same information as sighted viewers. If equivalent emergency information “is being provided in an accessible format concurrently to the display of the graphic, video programming providers and distributors likely are achieving the intended outcome of the rule,” said the joint filing from ACB and AFB. The groups are open to “a limited change” to the audible crawl rule “explicitly allowing” emergency information presented in an equivalent accessible text crawl, “even if there is not a direct or continuous audio description of the non-textual graphic image over the secondary audio stream.” Broadcasters have an automated process that makes text crawls accessible to the blind, using text-to-speech technology, said the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
“Any proposed change to the rule should go through the Commission’s notice-and-comment process to allow people who are blind or have low vision an opportunity to comment on the specific changes to the rule,” ACB and AFB said.
The current audible crawl rule is inconsistent with Congress’ goal in approving the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA), Gray added. Congress intended to increase the amount of emergency information available to all viewers, “not to impose a lowest common denominator approach where broadcasters are prohibited from providing emergency information that cannot practically be conveyed to viewers who are blind or visually impaired,” Gray said. Gray and other broadcasters stopped displaying weather maps and other graphics after the previous waiver was allowed to expire in November over concerns about FCC enforcement of the current rule, said Gray and SBE (see 2411290007).
“Stopping the dissemination of emergency information is antithetical to the public interest and an illogical consequence of the Audible Crawl rule,” said Gray. The Audible Crawl rule “goes beyond the CVAA’s statutory language by requiring parity between the information provided on screen and that transmitted over an audio channel,” Gray said. The rule was also arbitrary and capricious when adopted because it was put in place even though broadcasters could not comply with it, Gray said. “Thus, under both the recent [Loper Bright v. Raimondo] precedent or a traditional arbitrary and capricious analysis, concerns about the legality of the current Audible Crawl rule abound.”
Gray and SBE reemphasized that the current rule isn’t technologically workable for broadcasters. "The compliance mechanics for the textual component of the Rule are relatively straightforward, given that written text has an objective and certain aural translation,” said SBE. “Non-textual information, on the other hand, does not enjoy such objectivity or certainty in translation.” The FCC has “never articulated how it expects broadcasters to aurally describe graphical information such as weather radar,” Gray said. That leaves vendors “in the dark as to how to design a solution that both complies with the rule and would be useful to persons who are blind or visually impaired.”
The consumer groups also acknowledged that there is no currently available fully automated tool for live descriptions of graphics. “Nevertheless, we note that the rule does not specifically require automation, though an automated tool would certainly make it easier for video programming providers," said AFB and ACB. “We continue to urge NAB to work with the appropriate vendors to investigate solutions that may be achievable with future advances in artificial intelligence capabilities for live audio description of images and videos,” the joint filing said.
“Rather than maintaining a rule that is well-meaning, but so unfeasible that it has necessitated waivers for more than 10 years, the FCC should modify the Audible Crawl rule to balance the public interest,” said Gray Television.